Some products use wiring harness (called harness hereinafter) as electric wires. Harness is deformable, and can be obtained by processing wires or cables. Most apparatuses using a plurality of components, such as automobiles or the like need harnesses. Thus, software for supporting route-design operations of laying harness (referred to as route-design support software hereinafter) has been marketed in recent years. CAD (computer aided design) has been widely introduced to manufacturing industries, and accordingly route-design support software usually uses design data of an apparatus in order to design the routes of the harnesses to be laid in the apparatus in a virtual space. A design support system for supporting the route-design operation of laying harnesses is realized by implementing the route-design support software on a data processing apparatus (computer).
Harness is highly flexible. However, when a product is designed without considering harness, matters concerning harness sometimes require a design modification. This problem occurs because undesirable situations that can accompany the use of harness are easily overlooked. Examples of such undesirable situations include having to bend harness forcibly, installation work characteristics are bad or having harnesses interfere with other components. The route design using design data makes it possible to easily avoid this kind of situation being overlooked.
In a route design operation using a design support system, pass points, through which harness need to pass, are designated. When a position of a pass point is to be designated in conventional method of designating pass points, a position reference, which is a position serving as a reference for determining the position of the pass point being designated, is selected as an attribute of the pass point being designated. Examples of position references include a reference based on the origin of a coordinate system in a virtual space (called reference coordinates hereinafter), a reference based on another pass point (called relative coordinates hereinafter), and a reference based on a component (model) disposed in a virtual space (called a model reference hereinafter). These position references are referred to in order to identify positions of pass points, and accordingly they are called “reference destination” herein. The above coordinate system is defined on the basis of the target scope of the route design. The entire apparatus is managed by using another coordinate system (called an absolute coordinate system).
Not all of designated pass points are always appropriate. Also, the arrangement or types of other components may be changed. Thus, routes are designed in such a manner that the routes can be modified after their design is completed. In other words, users (persons who designed the routes) can arbitrarily add and delete pass points, and also can change their positions.
Conventional design support systems do not allow users to change the attributes (position references), forcing users to delete undesirable pass points and add a new pass points in order to change the attribute of the undesirable pass point. Thus, designing routes has not been an easy operation, and this has been problematic.
A position of a pass point is influenced as below by editing operations such as addition, deletion, or changing the position (position change) of other pass points, depending on the position reference designated as an attribute.
A pass point based on reference coordinates is not influenced by the addition, deletion, or position change of any pass points. It is not influenced by the exchange of components or the position change of components either. Accordingly, the position change requires the position change (editing) of the pass point itself.
The position of a pass point based on relative coordinates is changed in accordance with a change of the position of another pass point serving as the reference of the pass point. When there is still another pass point referring to thus position-changed pass point, the position of that pass point is changed as well. In other words, when pass points are successive in a relative coordinate system and a position of one of the successive pass points is changed, the positions of all the subsequent pass points are changed in accordance with the first position change of a pass point. Accordingly, a position change of one pass point can automatically cause position changes for a plurality of pass points (FIG. 29). Hereinafter, a pass point serving as a reference for pass points based on relative coordinates is called a “parent”, a pass point based on relative coordinates referring to the parent is called a “child”, and a pass point based on relative coordinates referring to the child is called a “grandchild”.
The position management of pass points of relative coordinates consists of storing relative positions with respect to parent pass points. Thus, when a parent pass point is deleted, the information of the parent pass point is stored in order to permit the identification of the position of a child pass point. When a new pass point is to be added between child and parent pass points, the new pass point being added is made to be a parent, or to add other new pass point that the parent is the new pass point.
A position of a pass point of a model reference is changed in accordance with a change of a position or an orientation of a designated component. Accordingly, a position change has to consist of a change of a relative position with respect to a component or a change of a position/orientation of the component itself. An exchange of a designated component for another one makes it impossible to identify the positions of pass points because the designated component serves as a reference. As a result, another component has to be designated or a new pass point has to be generated.
FIG. 29 illustrates a conventional technique of displaying pass points and position changes made to pass points of relative coordinates. In FIG. 29, a harness is provided between components A and B, and five pass points with pass point numbers 01 through 05 are set between components A and B. Pass points with pass point numbers 01 through 04 are of relative coordinates, and the pass point with pass point number 05 is of a model reference. The pass point with pass point number 01 (the first pass point) is a parent of the pass points with pass point numbers 02 and 04, and the pass point with pass point number 02 is a parent of the pass point with pass point number 03. Thereby, the positions of the pass points with pass point numbers 02 through 04 are automatically changed in accordance with the position change of the pass point with pass point number 01. The pass point with pass point number 05 refers to component D as a reference, i.e., a reference model, and accordingly the original position of the pass point with pass point number 05 is not changed even when the position of the pass point with pass point number 01 is changed. The same symbols (black circles) are used to express the pass points with pass point numbers 01 through 05 in FIG. 29.
As described above, when a position of one pass point is edited, positions of other pass points are influenced in accordance with the position reference set as an attribute. Accordingly, users select a position reference taking this influence into consideration. However, in the conventional method, the same symbols (black circles in this example) have been used to display pass points regardless of their position references (attributes), as illustrated in FIG. 29. Accordingly, it has been difficult to find which pass point will have the position influenced by the editing of other pass point, which is problematic.
When it is difficult to find which pass point will have the position influenced, a longer time is required to confirm the position of the pass point, which prevents smooth operations. Also, the relationship between a pass point based on a model reference and a designated component is difficult to understand, making it difficult to design routes. Therefore, above problem is form not to be able to perform the route design easily.
Long harnesses have to be fixed at plural points. The fixation of a harness limits the directions in which the harness can pass. Accordingly, passing directions are designated for pass points of a model reference in the conventional method.
Passing directions are influenced by the reference components. Specifically, a change to the orientation of the component changes the passing direction. When a passing direction is changed significantly, the route design (arrangement of pass points) of the harness usually has to be significantly modified. Accordingly, route design modifications often have been required by a change in the arrangement of pass points when the arrangement of components is not fixed. This is one of the factors that makes route design operations difficult.
Harnesses themselves are deformable linear structure that can be obtained by processing wires or cables. Not only are thin linear structures such as electric wires, cables (including optical cables), etc., provided to apparatuses, but thick linear structures, which are relatively thick, are also provided. For example, cylindrical linear structures are provided usually to allow fluid (such as air) to flow through the structures themselves or to allow other linear structures to run through the structures themselves.
These linear structures are provided not only between components in one apparatus but also between components disposed in separate places. Thus, routes are sometimes designed in order to provide linear structures between separate components (apparatuses). This means that a target of route design can be not only a single component, but also a plurality of components disposed in separate places. In view of this, it is important that routes be designed easily regardless of the variety of targets.